DVD Fort Apache
John Ford's 1948 classic stars John Wayne as a Cavalry officer used to doing things a certain way out West at Fort Apache. Along comes a rigid, new commanding officer (Henry Fonda) who insists that everything on his watch be done by the book, including dealings with local Indians. The results are mixed: greater discipline at the fort, but increased hostilities with the natives. Ford deliberately leaves judgments about the wisdom of these changes ambiguous, but he also allows plenty of room in this wonderful film for the fullness of life among the soldiers and their families--community rituals, new romances--to blossom. Fonda, in an unusual role for him, is stern and formal as the new man in charge; Wayne is heroic as the rebellious second; Victor McLaglen provides comic relief; and Ward Bond is a paragon of sturdy and sentimental masculinity. All of this is set against the magnificent, poetic topography of Monument Valley. This is easily one of the greatest of American films. --Tom Keogh |
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Review(s): DVD Fort Apache | |
| An unsatisfactory epic Western! |
In portraying the history of the United States from the Revolutionary War to World War II, John Ford continually resorted to a deeply personal, nostalgic form of legend... If there is no doubt of his importance to the development of the Western, his uniquely sentimental, poetic glorification of the white American's conquest of the wilderness is both picturesque and reactionary...
The cavalrymen get a more honorable deal from three films made in succession by him: 'Ford Apache,' 'She Wore a Yellow Ribbon,' and 'Rio Grande.' These are quite properly referred to as his 'cavalry trilogy' as they deserve to be considered as a body of work dedicated to a particular theme, that of the life of the cavalry and their role as frontier protectors in times of Indian uprising...
'Fort Apache' is about the tensions in an isolated fort-social and military - hierarchy tensions, and, ultimately, the purely military tensions that arise when the commanding officer is transparently ill-fitted for his command...
Henry Fonda is a vain, domineering, and embittered colonel who can't get over losing his Civil War rank as general... He arrives at the Arizona desert outpost to take over from the experienced Indian fighter, John Wayne... He is arrogant, accepting no advice, and further alienates the hard-bitten veterans by refusing to support the romance of his lovely daughter (Shirley Temple) with a young lieutenant from West Point (John Agar) who happens to be the son of sergeant major (Ward Bond).
There are nice touches in the film here about army traditions, and undisciplined troops: Civil War veterans living in noisy harmony; amusing and touching moments with variety of vignettes that deal with the everyday lives of Fort Apache cavalrymen; and pretty Irish drunk humor from Victor McLaglen... The inevitable climax concerns, of course, the colonel's arrogance and ignorance leading his men into an Apache massacre...
'Fort Apache' is an unsatisfactory epic Western which yet contains sequences in its director's best manner... Ford consistently finds the most beautiful way to frame a scene, and the black and white photography is stunning... But the best of the trilogy is undoubtedly 'She Wore a Yellow Ribbon,' which remains for many their favorite Western movie...
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| THE AUTHOR BEHIND ALL THE CAVALRY EPICS |  |
Reading reviews of the cavalry trilogy movies (Fort Apache, She Wore A Yellow Ribbon, & Rio Grande) you will possibly hear appreciation for the director, the actors, the locations, etc., but one thing you may not hear is appreciation for the author who put pen and ink to paper to write all these stories that found their way to the movie screen.
His name was James Warner Bellah and from his short story, MASSACRE, published by Curtis Publishing Company in 1947 came the framework for the movie Fort Apache. Other of his stories form the background for the other 2 cavalry pictures, as well as the later movie, SERGEANT RUTLEDGE.
All these stories, 10 in total, later appeared in a Fawcett Gold Medal paperback (s1218) entitiled REVEILLE which sold for 35 cents in June, 1962. The fort was called Fort Starke in the stories and this is how Fawcett summarized the book: "A choice collection of great stories that thunder the glory of the old horse soldiers in their final triumphant days at Fort Starke ... This is what it was like".
I have two copies of that 1962 Fawcett Gold Medal paperback, as well as two copies of the June, 1960, .35 cent Bantam paperback western A2085: SERGEANT RUTLEDGE.
As Paul Harvey would say: now you know the rest of the story.
Semper Fi.
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| John Ford/Henry Fonda/John Wayne Craft Excellent Western | |
The 1st and best of the calvary trilogy. Fonda plays a small-minded, embittered, rascist, classist, dishonorable, incompentent, pendantic, martinet. Wayne, in a subordinant role, plays his loyal but wary second-in-command. From the very beginning, Ford's Col Thursday gets off on the wrong foot. Rude, unprofessional and openly disdainful, he alienates everyone on his new post, especially and, purhaps most importantly, the women. His ceaseless disrespect offends the wives and infuriates their husbands. Nobody likes to see their wife disrespected, particularly by a senior officer who should know better. Fort Apache is a wonderful examination of military mens' devotion to duty even when commanded by those unfit to command.
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